Out-of-this-World Writer

Voices 8: Tiamat’s Wrath

I’m titling this post after the latest Expanse book. This post should probably have a Delusions of Grandeur warning, except – nah, not really. Nothing delusional about it. I was going to wait to post all of these in order, but I’m kind of done with the backdoor drama of it all. Ready to move on to other things, like housework and petting my cats.

FYI.

The Expanse is a great series up to and including this book. This post includes spoilers.

This post will make pretty much zero sense unless you’ve read the series.

If you have read the series, this post will probably still make zero sense, but it might make you smile a little inside.

It’s quite long. Over 1,000 words.

As with many Expanse titles, I’m still not entirely sure what the title means to the authors. I know what it means to me.

Here’s what that title and the quote means to me, and it’s probably the biggest craziest yet most real secret in my life right now:

By the time Avasarala dies, she knows that she’s going to drag her enemies down with her. Because, she’s been planning this not-so-secret coup for her whole political life.

I know Avasarala’s strategy well. I know it very well. I really do hope it works, I mean, in the real world. There’s only one way to find out – and I’ve already done it. I think. Only God knows for sure, and either way I regret nothing.

Oh yeah, as God and a few (n->∞?) other people may or may know (depending on whether or not I’m delusional), in the course of a massive conversation with a lot of invisible people (including people who haven’t been born yet), I designed the Roman Catholic Church. Upon discovering that my personal design was IN the Roman Catholic Church, my first thought was: but that’s the Whore of Babylon. Then, I started to laugh. Not everyone gets me – or my humor – but that’s okay. Jesus still loves me.

By the way, my design contained the biggest escape clause ever. Because my church is a *sacrament* and a *sacrifice*, membership is optional. For now, anyway. We’ll see. To be honest, I’m bored with the concept as a concept, and ready to move on to the reality.

…Sigh

In Tiamat’s Wrath, this one character calls the Ring builders Romans – meaning that yes they are dead and gone, but they left some pretty great roads. Let’s build on that concept.

How about if you leave the Romans there – but you steal their stuff and use it for good? Even better still, what if you do all of this from within the human soul and wind up saving the Romans themselves? If transcending time and space and recreating matter from scratch is in your wheelhouse, it isn’t even all that hard.

The hard part is *redeeming* from within, weeding out the bad/violent tendencies and building up the good ones, so you can save the people and not just use their body parts for … parts. Because that would be wrong. (See entry 6: Why Murder Is Wrong.)

If this works, then I believe we can probably save most of the human race by proxy, which is not boring and is good – but only if it works – and I’m 99% sure it will, but not because I’m writing this blog post.

I’m mostly sharing this post in case someone should read it and understand what I mean when I say: enjoy eternal life, forever. I hope. If not, we’ve made a good end run of it. I regret nothing.

I’m not sure what happens next. I’ve been wondering for a couple decades now, ever since I came up with this crazy idea for a world religion I might actually want to belong to – which as far as I knew would *never exist* and therefore I could live my whole life without ever needing to go to Church again.

Next level tip: If you not-so-secretly want the good and righteous God to win, then … Bring It. See what happens.

FYI: God always wins. There’s no better place to be than a) the frontlines or b) the ring.

Frankly, this whole being forced into the house thing has given me way too much time to think. And my brain is kind of like this massive landscape dotted with trees, fallen bodies, inter-dimensional portals and so on.

Here’s what I’m thinking right now. I hate the way that people continue to die for no good reason. And how messed up the United States healthcare system is right now. And the government in general.

Here is my tentative opinion. I try to confine these kinds of opinions to my context because, for example, heck if I know what’s going on in Australia now. Does anyone ever really understand Australia?

I think the U.S. needs to accept among other things that Healthcare is not like writing books or doing people’s nails. Healthcare is literally a matter of life and death. If the government took over healthcare, it would mean more taxes, yes, but would it mean that much more in healthcare spending for the average person? I know someone official has run the numbers, and I’m pretty sure it goes something like this:

It could mean that fewer poor/middle-class voters would die each year due to healthcare access. It would relieve considerable strain from other parts of our social network, such as emergency rooms, police stations, and prisons. It would definitely cost some very wealthy campaign funders a good deal of money.

If I ever feel stuck in a bad loop, I remember that things could always be worse – which means that we could always make them better. Make America a haven for the poor and hungry of the world again. Stop giving out handouts to the poor while failing to address the societal failings we all know exist, that tend to keep the poor right where they are.

Here’s how myths and gods used to work:

Each year (or month or when the crops failed) people would sacrifice an animal/human being/small child. Alternatively you could strongly encourage men/women/small children/goats to become sexual prostitutes in order to give paying customers a divine experience.

For all those who are (at times understandably) angry about modern-day religion, at least we know longer SAY it’s okay to do these things. That’s almost like progress.

God has always been very clear about the path forward. The path forward has not changed (much).

Option A.

Option B.

Seriously, I’d like to say this to the asset-hoarding elite. Pick up a history book and read it sometime. Being selfish asshats never pays for very long, because enough angry day laborers with pitchforks can and will defeat you. If nothing else, you still need day laborers – and you can’t brainwash all of us forever.

Let. My. People. Go.

Hey! I have a new mantra.

If you read this to the end, this concludes the Voices in My Head series. Feel free to drop by my Letters to God series, where the story continues. Or, you know, drop by sometime. We’d love to have you over for dinner. When you’re ready. All in good time, beratna. All in good time.